DeKalb cracking down on scofflaws

DeKALB – The city will issue arrest warrants for individuals who have not paid their ordinance fines to the city or are skipping their circuit court dates.

City Attorney Dean Frieders said these are people who have been found guilty of violating one of the city’s ordinances, and are either skipping their court dates or not paying their fine.

“It is a matter of we will come and find you,” Frieders said. “And you may be arrested on an arrest warrant and brought to jail until a judge determines what the appropriate outcome for the case is.”

Frieders will present this update to the DeKalb City Council at their meeting Monday. He said the city has a backlog of cases in which individuals are not complying with court orders, and said an arrest warrant could be issued if the person does not correct his or her behavior.

He did not know how big the backlog was, but said it was “several hundred easily.”

“If you’re not yet the subject of a warrant, and you have a case that’s in a noncompliant status, you should know that the warrant is coming,” Frieders said. “We are going through old cases, we are processing them. Either you come find us, or we’ll come find you.”

If an arrest warrant is issued, Frieders encouraged those individuals to turn themselves in.

He said people with noncomplaint cases can still come in and work with city officials to change that status. A final notice will be sent to the person before a warrant is issued for their arrest, he said.

The city also is cracking down on people with large amounts of unpaid parking tickets. Through the city’s administrative hearing process, a driver with 10 or more outstanding parking tickets could have his or her license suspended through the Illinois Secretary of State’s office.

Frieders said the city was looking into other remedies for drivers who have fewer than 10 outstanding parking tickets.

“We’re encouraging anyone who has outstanding parking tickets to come in and talk to the city, either arrange a payment plan or pay the tickets in full and avoid the consequences,” Frieders said. “It is not our goal to inconvenience people, but when there are outstanding violations people are disregarding ... we have an obligation to make sure the city’s ordinances are enforced.”

Frieders could not say how big the backlog of outstanding parking tickets is, but he did say some of them “go back years.”